Luca Remmert's farm in Venaria, Reale, Italy is testing the New Holland T6 Methane Tractor technology, which is being developed with the goal of making farms self-sufficient.

Methane would be 30-percent cheaper than diesel. And for farms that produce their own bio-methane, the costs of fuel would drop to nothing. Bio-methane is a type of gas produced by the processing of organic waste — something farms have a lot of.

“When the machinery is ready, I will be among the first customers,” Remmert said recently at the farm, where New Holland was showing off the technology.

The methane-run T6 would hit production in about five years, according to New Holland.

For a farm to get the most savings out of it, it would have to be able to produce bio-methane, which has significant upfront equipment costs. In addition, the drive toward biofuels is being slowed by the sharp drop in the cost of fossil fuel over the last year.